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500GB Hard Drive Round-Up
HD Tach
For this set of benchmarks I am using Simpli Software's HDTach v RW 3.0.1.0. To begin, the hard drive was formatted as NTFS using the "normal" format, not the quick. Needless to say, formatting a 500 GB hard drive takes a while. The full bench (variable zone, etc) was performed 3 times and the numbers averaged to yield the final result. The results of the full benchmark are broken down into three parts which are: Random Access Time, Average Read, and Sequential Read. Random Access Time The random access benchmark is exactly what it says, the average time to read a randomly located sector on the device.  Here you can see the Hitachi beating both the Western Digital and the Seagate drive. The difference is obvious in the graph, but in the real world you'd be hard pressed to notice that extra millisecond. Average Read Test This test is the average (in MB/s) from the sequential read which follows it. Due to differences in the location on the platter, you will not get a consistent read across the entire disk. The average read can give you an idea what to expect by factoring in both the fast and slow sectors of a disk.  Now things are starting to get interesting. The Western Digital drive has dramatically beaten both the Seagate and the Hitachi in this test and by quite a large amount too. There is at least a 10MB/sec difference between the WD and the others. Sequential Read Test This test is pretty self-explanatory. The benchmark reads every half gig across the entire disk. This comes down to about 1000 data points for those who are keeping score. As a comparison, I have also included the test results on an 80GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard drive, and yes it is the pathetic looking one.  Looking at the results of the sequential read it is obvious why the Western Digital drive had such a high average read speed. The drive is just that much faster. It still suffers from the same degradation of speed across the platter, but it starts so much higher, the others can not compete in this benchmark. Iometer For this test, I used the same read/write specification used to previously test the X6 NAS device by Infrant. This is a 2 min test using first a 256K write of a 1 GB file. This is followed by a 2 min 256K read of the same 1GB file. Each test was performed 3 times and averaged. Each drive was formatted before the test was carried out.  Not surprisingly, the Western Digital has bested the other two drives which appear to be pretty close to each other with the Hitachi nosing ahead of the Seagate. Disk Bench This benchmark is closer to a "real world" experience one might see with a drive. The software performs various functions common to most users and essentially times them. These include creating files, reading files, and copying files. Dual File Creation Two files are created simultaneously in this test. I ran two different settings. The first was using 36 blocks of 20MB, which yields a file size of 754974720 bytes. The other test was using 50 blocks of 15MB, which yields a file size of 786432000 bytes. The results are reported in the time it takes to create both files in seconds.  Here we see the Hitachi actually performing the best with a completion time almost 3 seconds faster than the Seagate and 2 seconds faster than the Western Digital.  This time the Seagate drive was the lagging drive. Both the WD and Hitachi are very close in write time. Single File Copy A single file was copied from the c: drive to the test drive. The file was the public beta 2 of windows Vista 32-bit edition. The exact file was "vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso" and was over 3GB in size. The exact size was 3355598848 bytes.  Interestingly, the Western Digital drive which had performed so well in previous tests appears to be having problems with this particular benchmark finishing almost 4 seconds later than the Hitachi. Batch File Creation For this test a series of files are created in ever increasing sizes. I started with a 48 MB file and topped out at a 628 MB file. The file sizes were in increments of 20MB.  The difference in at least one of the drives is clearly visible in this graph. At lower file sizes, they all seem to be pretty well matched, but as the file size begins to increase, the WD starts to gain. File Read Using the handy Windows Vista ISO again, I chose to read the file from the drive. The results are in seconds.  This result was so different I had to run it twice (2x 3reps) just to see if I had messed up somewhere. Both times I got the same result. Unlike previous tests which could go either way with some of the drives, this test shows differences which are quite dramatic. In terms of pure transfer rate the corresponding numbers are WD is 59.6 MB/s, Hitachi is 32.7 MB/s and the Seagate at 15.5 MB/s.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Initial Comparison & Testing Methodologies Page 3: Testing: HDTach, IOMeter, and DiskBench Page 4: Drive Operation & Conclusion 
Related Reviews Internal Hard Drives December 4, 2008
Internal Hard Drives March 27, 2008
Add Comment
5 User Comments 1 - Posted by
BCSchnei
on September 27, 2006 - 12:09 pm Nice review Rich. I was wondering if you noticed any significant difference in the noise level between the drives. Did one or the other strike you as particularly loud? I really want the quietest computer possible and waiting a few extra seconds is not something I'm too worried about if I don't have to listen to the heads trash around all the time. I'm really hoping that Samsung gets their new solid state HD's available in larger sizes. http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/20/conventiona... Ben 2 - Posted by
Nick
on September 27, 2006 - 1:18 pm If yer not worried about a few seconds, get a 2.5" drive. I was ghosting to one sitting open on my desk 4 feet from me and I couldn't hear it above the normal office din.
3 - Posted by
Rich
on September 27, 2006 - 3:06 pm These 500GB drives are far quieter than my older PATA drives were, unfortunately, I have a lot of noisy fans, so I am not able to truely figure out which is the least noisy. That and I don't have a db meter.
4 - Posted by
Darthb0b0
on September 28, 2006 - 11:25 am I'm disappointed you tested the Seagate 7200.9 series when the 7200.10 drives have been out for awhile. The new perpendicular recording has significantly changed their performance characteristics. I'd like to see those numbers against the WD and Hitachi drives.
5 - Posted by
Rich
on September 28, 2006 - 12:13 pm That is what Seagate chose to send us at the time of this writing. Although perpendicular recording technology is where the industry is headed, that is a whole new review. It will probably happen with 750GB drives when is does happen anyway. I would agree though I am very interested to see just what type of difference in speed perpendicular recording does make.
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